


Closer, Miles Away

by themorninglark



Category: Free!
Genre: AU: Canon divergence, Byousoku 5 Centimetres, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Official MakoHaru Festival 2015, Pre-Series, Prompt: Delayed Train, Slice of Life, round 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:24:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3401669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“We repeat, this train will be delayed by five minutes entering Ohara Station. We deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused.”</i>
</p><p>This is a story about a green-eyed boy, his train journey across the length of Japan, the black-haired boy who's waiting for him at the end of it, and the distance between them that seems to stretch on forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer, Miles Away

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Haru moved away with his parents at the end of junior high school instead of staying in Iwatobi. 
> 
> The story is inspired by, and pays tribute, to the beautiful short film _Byousoku 5 Centimetres (5 Centimetres Per Second)_ by Makoto Shinkai, but no knowledge of _Byousoku 5 cm_ is needed to read it. If you do know the film, you'll catch some references though :)
> 
> (For maximum feels, listen to [the soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sjOVN07y14) while reading it)
> 
> Written for the [Official MakoHaru Festival 2015](http://theofficialmakoharufestival.tumblr.com/).

Two boys stand on the water’s edge, one with black hair and blue eyes, the other with olive brown hair and green eyes. They watch the sun set over the horizon in shades of pink and brilliant orange. Circling overhead, the gulls cry.

“Did you know, Makoto… the waves in the Sea of Japan move up to 25 centimetres per second,” says the black-haired boy.

“Ehh, really? You know a lot about such things, Haru.”

The black-haired boy turns to his friend.

They are fifteen years old, on the cusp of sixteen. Seven summers ago, they stood with hands clasped tight on the pier, watching the sea, watching a parade of fishermen in white as the green-eyed boy turned cold and clammy.

The black-haired boy wants to reach out for that hand again. He sees it by his friend’s side, bigger now, with callused fingers, darker from their times spent in the sun. But they are fifteen years old.

Perhaps, thinks the black-haired boy, this will be our last chance. Perhaps after we cross the boundary of our mid-teens, all claims of sweet, childlike innocence will have to end, and people will look at us and say two boys shouldn’t be doing that.

Perhaps I should hold his hand one last time.

But just then, the tide comes in to lap at their toes, and the green-eyed boy leaps back with a startled yelp and a laugh. “The water is cold,” he says.

The moment passes in the space of a breath. The black-haired boy watches his friend’s hand arc through the air, out of reach. 

"Hey, Makoto…"

Waves crash on the sand, washing away their footprints, towards the seabed.

"Yes, Haru?"

"Let’s come here again next year. We’ll watch the sun set over the sea, just like this."

The green-eyed boy’s gentle brow crinkles as he smiles. He nods.

“Mmm,” is all he says, his voice light and easy, floating away on the wind.

The sea swells, and the tides shift.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Makoto,_

_I’m writing this letter on the train. I have to take the train to school now. Including the walk from home, it can take me nearly an hour to get to school. Of all the things to miss, I never thought I would miss walking to and from school every day._

_I was very lucky today to get a seat. The train is always so crowded._

_Tokyo is so much bigger than Iwatobi. That sounds obvious. But I can’t describe in words how much bigger it is. It’s like when we stand at the shrine on the very top of the mountains, and look out at the ocean. Then we imagine how many of Iwatobi could fit into all that water. Then multiply that by hundreds. And maybe that’s just the start of how big Tokyo is._

_There are forty students in my class and I have a seat by the window again. My homeroom teacher is an older man who teaches history and everyone knows he wears a toupee._

_How did your first day of high school go?_

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

Makoto runs up the stairs to his house.

He is out of breath by the time he reaches the top. He opens his letterbox, and there, inside, is the reason he’s been sprinting home all week to the bewilderment of his classmates; there, inside, is a nondescript envelope in cream with a Tokyo postmark,  _Tachibana Makoto_  written across the front in a careful, formal hand that the green-eyed boy will never forget.

He takes off his shoes, enters his front hall, shouts “I’m home!” to his mother and the twins, and spends five minutes wrestling Ran off his shoulders before he makes it to his bedroom.

Makoto does not open the envelope yet. He goes, first, to a poster of a sunset in the corner of his room, and adds another mark to the tally.  _Twenty_. Four little sets of five now, etched out on a blue post-it that Makoto’s stuck right in the middle of the poster, right at the line where the sunlit sea meets the crimson sky.

He throws himself down on his bed and takes the letter out of the envelope, tearing the flap carefully so that it does not rip. The paper is of the plain lined variety, torn out of a notebook.

 _Dear Makoto_ , it starts.

Makoto can tell just by reading that that this letter was worth the wait.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Makoto,_

_There is a river that runs through Nakameguro. I’ve found that if I take a detour home from the station, I can walk past it every day._

_Sakura trees line the riverbank. The flowers are out in full bloom now, and pink petals are scattered all over the surface of the water. It’s one of the most popular places in Japan for Hanami._

_Sometimes I stop at the taiyaki stall by the bridge and get a red bean pancake if the weather is cold. Here in Tokyo, there are these little stalls everywhere on the streets selling all kinds of food, like at the summer festivals we used to go to._

_So Kisumi, Ikuya, Asahi and the others didn’t end up at Iwatobi High School after all? Well, I’m sure you’ll make new friends easily. You were always good at that._

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

The day of the cultural festival dawns bright and crisp, and brings with it falling leaves, classmates in strange costumes of all sorts and the sounds of guitar and drums coming out of the school hall.

Makoto walks to school with Haru that day. He leaves the twins to his mother, who waves them off down the stairs with a cheery smile and a “you boys have fun!”

They go their separate ways when they arrive. Haru has to help with preparing the food in his classroom, which is now a bustling cafe with tantalising umami smells coming out the door; Makoto is scheduled to help at one of the game stations in his classroom, where the objective is to toss little darts with rubberised tips into a foam board.

At noon, they meet in the corridor between their homerooms. When Makoto emerges, Haru is standing there with two paper cups of hot barley tea in his hands. He offers one to Makoto, who accepts it with a grateful smile.

“I saved you a box of takoyaki.”

“Ah, thanks so much, Haru!”

“It’s in my desk. We can go take it a bit later.”

They make their way through the crowds in Iwatobi Junior High School.

It is late in October. The weather is turning colder. Soon, thinks Makoto, clutching his tea and watching the steam waft out in front of his nose, it will be Christmas, and it will be New Year, and then spring will come nosing curiously round the corner with its flowery scent and light breezes like kisses.

And he and Haru will be in their last year of junior high school.

_Time flies, huh…_

He hears a shout from up ahead. “Tachibana! Oi, come join us!”

Makoto blinks himself out of his reverie. Two of his classmates are waving him over to an archway made of what looks like toilet rolls and crepe paper in black and orange, with a grotesquely carved pumpkin on a ledge outside.

It’s a haunted house.

Makoto swallows. “I… I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Oh, come on, we need, like a big guy like you to scare them right back!”

Makoto feels a hand on his wrist tugging him towards the doorway. He hears a ghastly wail from inside, and flinches.

A hand clamps down on his other wrist, cool and firm. It pulls him in the other direction, inexorably as the tide.

“Makoto’s busy.”

Later, Makoto’s classmates will tell him that they had never seen anyone look the way Nanase did at them, with his eyes like a frozen tundra and his gaze pricking cold, and that Nanase had been scarier than anything they saw inside the haunted house in the end.

 

* * *

 

_Makoto,_

_The weather was nice today, so I went to the beach._

_Going to the beach is a big deal here in Tokyo, because it’s not just there, like it is in Iwatobi. I had to take the train. I had to take several trains. Shinjuku Station is a maze._

_It’s not a bad beach I guess, for something so near to a big city. There are too many tourists. But the sand is nice, and the water feels good. I thought it would be gross and polluted. It’s all right._

_Somehow, even though I’ve been here for almost three months already, I still can’t forget the way the water in Iwatobi looks when we go to the pier. All those times we went fishing, you were always paying so much more attention to the fish and stressing about how to take the hook out without hurting it, while I think I didn’t really notice anything other than the water._

_It’ll be summer vacation soon. Are you and your family travelling? Give my love to Ran and Ren._

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

Makoto and Haruka, the boy with the laughter like wind rustling through grass, and the boy with a gossamer smile like a faery’s wing, run down the road outside their elementary school.

“Tag,” calls Makoto breathlessly, as he taps Haruka on the shoulder. “Caught you, Haru-chan.”

“It’s not fair. Your legs are longer,” says Haruka.

“Then, I’ll give you a head start!”

Makoto comes to a standstill. He stands in the middle of the pavement, and covers his eyes. “One. Two. Three - ”

Haruka takes a deep breath. He looks forward. And he runs.

The day stretches beyond them endlessly, in lazy, languid sunbeams that dance on the back of their necks and cast long shadows on the ground, and they are young and have all the time in the world, all this time, so much time to plunge headlong into, clumsy but together.

 

* * *

 

Makoto’s family takes a trip to Kyushu in summer of his first year of high school. They make a road trip out of it in the family car, though their father jokes that they’ll have to get a new one soon because Makoto’s outgrowing it faster than they can turn around and blink.

As the twins doze off in the warmth of the backseat, Ran on his shoulder, Ren on his lap, Makoto balances a postcard on his knee and finishes it with shaky handwriting.

He signs it off, puts it into the front pocket of his bag, then he takes out a crumpled post-it and smooths it out. It’s full of little scratch marks that get more and more minuscule as they go along.

Makoto takes a deep breath and makes one last mark on it, in the last little square centimetre of space he has available.

_One hundred and sixteen._

Makoto spends the rest of the car ride folding the post-it into a paper crane, unfolding it, and folding it again, till the creases are worn into the sticky side and his fingers are moving on their own without even thinking, as he stares out at the rolling scenery, thinking about how fast it’s passing them by.

He looks down at the crane in his hand, and imagines it spreading its wings in the wide open sky.

Soon, he thinks. Soon.

 

* * *

 

_Makoto,_

_Don’t be absurd, you can’t come all the way down here to see me just for Christmas! The trains will be so crowded and the city will be even worse. Remember when I tried to describe how big Tokyo is? Imagine all that space being so full of people you can’t even raise your hand to scratch your nose._

_That is what I live with every day._

_I’m getting used to it, but you’re not, so don’t put yourself through that._

_Sorry this letter is so short, I just wanted to tell you this quickly. I’ll write something longer next time._

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

Makoto picks up a train guide at the local train station. He sits in his room under the lamplight that night, and plots a careful course on a thinly-lined piece of paper.

_Iwatobi Station — (JR Sanin Main Line towards Tottori Station, 24 min) — > Tottori Station — (JR Super Hakuto towards Kyoto, 1h 29min) —> Himeji Station — (Tokaido / Sanyo Shinkansen towards Tokyo, 2h 45min) —> Shin-Yokohama Station — (JR Yokohama Line towards Higashikanagawa, 1 stop) —> Kikuna Station — (Tokyu Toyoko Line towards Wakoshi, 8 stops) —> Nakameguro Station._

Makoto puts a full stop at the end of  _Nakameguro Station_ , dotting it with a firm hand.

He holds the paper up to the light. It flutters as the ceiling fan spins above him.

The journey totals 5h 54min in total.

5h 54min is nothing, thinks Makoto, compared to one hundred and sixteen days.

He presses it close to his heart, and breathes.

 

* * *

 

_Makoto,_

_If you’re going to be stubborn about it, then at least send me your route and all your train timings. I’ll make sure to meet you at the station. If you get lost in Tokyo it’ll be the end of you._

_I got all your postcards from Kyushu, by the way. I wrote the last letter in such a huge hurry I didn’t have time to mention that. They came one after another in the post, one every day. It made me feel like I went on the trip along with you and your family._

_Thank you._

_Haru_

_p.s. Here is my mobile phone number, if you need to call me along the way. My parents made me get one just in case “something happens to you in this big city”. Nothing has ever happened to me and the phone is annoying. I wish you were here to teach me how to use it. It’s a pain._

_I know you don’t have a mobile, but maybe you can find a payphone or something if you need to._

 

* * *

 

“Hey Tachibana, some of us are heading out to get ramen for lunch, want to come?”

Makoto looks up from his desk, where he is packing his pencil case. He smiles, and shakes his head. “Thanks, but I’ve got things to do.”

“Eh? What?” The boy standing over his desk grins. “You got a hot date?”

“Ah, no, it’s not like that…”

A swirl of white outside the window catches Makoto’s eye. He turns, and sees a light sprinkling of snow start to fall, dusting the pavement outside and catching on the bare branches of the trees.

His classmate follows his gaze. “I’m glad it’s snowing,” he remarks. “Doesn’t feel like Christmas is coming, otherwise.”

Makoto slings his backpack over his shoulder and buttons up his coat. “Merry Christmas,” he says, waving as he leaves the classroom.

“Merry Christmas, Tachibana-kun.”

 

* * *

 

Makoto wants to run home, but the road is slippery beneath his shoes. He takes the stone steps two at a time anyway. He can’t wait. He has a train to catch. Out of breath, he sprints up to his room, drops his schoolbag, changes out of his uniform, and grabs the oversized duffel he packed last night.

“Makoto!” calls his mother, as he runs back down to the front door. “Here… give this to Haruka-kun when you see him.”

She’s holding out a brown paper bag. Makoto takes it, and opens it up. It’s a bunch of fish-shaped crackers that smell of bonito.

“Send our love to the Nanases,” she adds, with a fond smile. “And tell Haruka we miss him.”

Makoto nods. “I will. I’ll definitely tell him that.”

"Ah, and this is for your lunch."

Makoto’s mother presses a plastic box into his hands with three onigiri inside, slightly misshapen, clearly handmade. 

He leans over and kisses her on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

 

* * *

 

It’s past one when Makoto gets on the train. He is due in to Tokyo around 7:20 PM. 

He settles into his seat, takes out one of the onigiri and starts eating it hungrily. There is extra fish roe in it. 

The train moves off the tracks, slow and bumpy, making a drawn-out sound like a long sigh as it leaves their little port town behind. 

Makoto presses a hand to the window, watching in growing wonder as the countryside passes him by. He is sixteen years old and this is the longest trip he will have ever taken alone. 

Outside, the snow continues to fall.

 

* * *

 

"Makoto!"

Makoto opens his bedroom door a crack at the sound of his father calling for him. “Yes?”

"Phone for you."

 _Who could that be, so late at night?_  Makoto wonders, as he heads downstairs to the living room.

His father puts a hand over the receiver as Makoto approaches. “It’s Haruka-kun,” he mouths. 

Makoto stares. “Haru?”

Why would Haru be calling him? Why wouldn’t he just come down the stairs to find him? Why not just wait till school tomorrow? It doesn’t make any sense. 

His father nods. He doesn’t say anything further, just holds out the phone to his son, an unreadable look on his face. 

Makoto takes the handset and puts it to his ear. “Hello?”

"…Makoto."

There’s the most infinitesimal of pauses before Haru’s soft voice speaks Makoto’s name. The syllables float down the line to his ear, and they sound like an unfulfilled wish, yearning and solemn all at once. 

"Haru? What happened?"

He hears the sound of wheels on tarmac, the skid of an engine from somewhere in the dark.

“Haru? Was that a car behind you? Are you - are you out? You’re not at home?”

“Yeah,” says Haru. “I’m at the payphone on the corner near school.”

Makoto sinks down onto the floor, pressing the phone to his ear. He coils the cord around a finger to keep from biting his nails. It cuts into his knuckle.

“What happened?” he asks again.

“Makoto, I… I’m moving away.”

The green-eyed boy blinks in incomprehension.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“To Tokyo,” says the black-haired boy, his black-haired boy, the moon to his sun.

“…Tokyo.”

The moon tilts, and spins out of orbit, beyond the horizon of this galaxy.

“My father got a job there. I asked if I could stay here. I asked them to let me live in the house by myself. But they’ve already got me a place in a high school in Tokyo…”

“When are you going?”

It comes out no louder than a whisper, as if to give it voice would make it real.

“The day after junior high school graduation.”

Soon. Too soon. They graduate in a month’s time. They’re supposed to be going to Iwatobi High School together. They’re supposed to sit down together, and agonise over English homework together. They’re supposed to taste new popsicle flavours (together), decide they don’t like any of them as much as the others (together) and go back to the soda blue one in the end (together).

_together together together_

“Why are you at the payphone?”

“Because. I went for a run. I didn’t know what else to do…. there’s nowhere to swim.”

“Stay where you are,” says Makoto. “I’m coming for you.”

The sun shifts across the heavens. The world turns.

 

* * *

 

_“Tottori Station, this is Tottori, change here for trains on the Inbi Line towards Chizu, the Super Inaba towards Okayama and the Super Hakuto towards Kyoto.”_

Makoto gets off the train and nearly stumbles on the foot of the person in front of him; he’s so preoccupied paying attention to the signs and fretting about making his connection. The Super Hakuto is a limited express service. If he misses this one, it’ll take him at least an hour longer to get to Tokyo the regular way.

He somehow manages to get himself to the right platform, boards the third carriage of a garishly blue and pink train and settles into his reserved seat by the window, stamping the snow off his shoes. Tottori Station is largely enclosed, but the wind’s picked up now. There’s a layer of snow building up along the edge of the platforms.

Makoto looks at his watch. It’s 2:10 PM.

Soundlessly, the train begins to move. From a distance, Makoto sees the Sendai River, frozen over in shades of grey, like a black and white photograph that’s faded away.

 

* * *

 

Makoto is four years old when the Nanases move into the house upstairs.

“Come, Makoto,” his mother says to him, beckoning. “They have a boy your age.”

Makoto leaps lightly up the stone stairway, springing off his toes and flailing his arms for balance. He is eager and curious what the view from above is like. He’s never had a reason to go all the way up there before. There are so many steps.

The house at the top has a wooden fence that’s the same height as Makoto. He puts out a curious hand to touch the pointy wooden tips. His mother swats it away gently as they approach the front door, and she rings the bell.

The door slides open slowly, and a flash of startling, electric blue peeps out from the tiniest of cracks.

Makoto has never seen a colour like that. He can’t stop staring.

Then the door slides all the way open, and Makoto looks up to see a lady with long black hair on the other side of the threshold. The blue disappears in the blink of an eye, hiding behind her skirt.

“Ah, Natsumi-san! Thank you for coming! And you must be Makoto…”

Makoto’s mother squeezes his hand gently as the black-haired lady bends down to meet him eye to eye. “Say hi, Makoto.”

“Hello,” Makoto pipes up obediently.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Makoto-kun,” she says, with a kind smile. “Haruka…”

The boy with the blue eyes sticks half his head out from behind her back.

“Haruka, you remember Tachibana-san from downstairs? They have a boy your age. This is Makoto. Makoto, this is Haruka. He’s four years old too.”

 _Ha-ru-ka._  The name rolls lyrically off the tongue, the  _h_  a whispered breath, the  _r_  like a babbling brook, the  _ka_  like a surprising little question at the end, catching you unaware, just like those eyes.  _Haruka_.

Makoto stares in silence and shuffles his feet awkwardly. What if Haruka doesn’t like him? What if he’s smart and funny and amazing and finds Makoto really boring?

The boy studies Makoto through one eye for a few seconds longer before he steps out into full view. And it’s then that Makoto sees his face in full, and he’s the spitting image of his mother, serious gaze and fine black hair falling over his forehead in loose strands that Makoto wants to tuck behind his ear for him.

So he does. He reaches out, and pushes a stray handful of hair back for Haruka.

For a moment, he feels Haruka freeze up beneath his fingers, like no one’s ever done that for him before, and he stares at Makoto like Makoto is some strange being.

Makoto’s fingertips brush the top of Haruka’s ear. He lets his hand drop, and he smiles.

Haruka raises a hand self-consciously to the side of his head, still staring.

 

* * *

 

The sound of the intercom crackling to life distracts Makoto from his blank reverie.

_“Dear passengers, your attention please… due to bad weather ahead, this train will be delayed by five minutes entering Ohara Station…”_

Makoto sits up. He pushes back the hem of his jacket sleeve, and looks at his watch.

He pulls out the train timetable stashed in his pocket along with the paper plotting his route, and spreads it out on the table in front of him. They should have been at Ohara by now. They’d left Chizu behind fifteen minutes ago.

_“We repeat, this train will be delayed by five minutes entering Ohara Station. We deeply apologise for the inconvenience caused.”_

Makoto looks out of the window at barren fields and tiny houses far, far away. There’s nothing else around them but the swirling eddies of falling snow, covering the land in a slowly thickening blanket of white, like the earth is settling in for a long, silent sleep.

Five minutes. Makoto takes a deep breath, counting the seconds as they tick by, slowly but surely.

 

* * *

 

_“Sayo Station…”_

Makoto stirs. He blinks his eyes open.

_“This is Sayo Station. We apologise for the late arrival of this train.”_

The window is freezing against Makoto’s cheek. There’s little ventilation in the train carriage, to keep the heat in. He’s starting to feel a little lightheaded.

_“Due to bad weather, this train will be delayed by eight minutes departing Sayo. The next stop is Kamigori. We deeply apologise for the delay to your journey this afternoon.”_

Blearily, Makoto turns his wrist to look at his watch. It hits him then.

_I fell asleep…_

_I fell asleep!_

_Sayo! Kamigori!_

With a mounting desperation, he reaches inside his jacket for the train route and timetable again, and heaves out a long sigh of relief when he finds the next stop, Kamigori, on the map. It’s the stop just before Himeji. He’s still in time. He hasn’t slept right through it.

_In time…_

Makoto looks down at his watch again. It’s 3:15 PM. His train from Himeji leaves at 4:01 PM.

He opens up the train timetable. On a normal day, it takes 35 minutes to get from Sayo to Himeji; with the eight minute delay here, that stretches it to 43 minutes…

43 minutes, and three minutes to make his connection at Himeji, if nothing else goes wrong.

 _Please,_  thinks Makoto, placing his warm palm on the window. It mists up beneath his breath.

_Please. Haru is waiting for me. Please let me make it._

 

* * *

 

_I always thought -_

Makoto’s train of thought stops there, and careens off the rails into nothingness.

_I always thought -_

He can’t finish it, because there’s nothing there to be finished. He always thought  _nothing_. He never even thought about it. It never entered his head to think about it because there was never anything that needed to be thought, it just  _was_ , like breathing.

You breathe, and oxygen fills your lungs, and you live. You live.

Makoto lives with the boy of bone-white china and porcelain by his side, the boy who threatens to break if you push him over the edge, the boy with the hairline fractures running finely through his body.

Makoto lives with his hands cupped tenderly around that boy, and as he runs, runs through the night towards a phone booth under a lone blinking light, he doesn’t know how he will begin to unclasp them.

 

* * *

 

_“Dear passengers, your attention please… due to the snow ahead, we have stopped here for a short while. We beg your patience, and we deeply apologise for the delay to your journey this afternoon._

_The next station is Himeji. Himeji, the next station.”_

 

* * *

 

The minutes seem to last forever. The distance between each stop seems to stretch on forever, interminably; they pull into Kamigori after a long series of starts and stops, and the winter sun is setting behind the misty fog.

When they leave Kamigori, the sky is dark.

Makoto watches helplessly as he crumples his route map into a tight ball in the crease of his hot fist. He takes out his second onigiri, and eats it, because there is nothing else he can do right now.

 

* * *

 

In the end, the train is delayed for over an hour.

It is 4:45 PM when Makoto arrives at Himeji. He has been staring fixedly at the timetable for the last fifteen minutes on the train, and he knows there is another at 4:49 PM, with fewer stops, that can still get him into Tokyo at a reasonable time. He can make it. He can still make it.

_Haru, wait for me._

Makoto twists the ends of his scarf round his fingers, bunching the woolly fabric into tight little anxious knots as the line moves forward bit by bit.

4:49 PM comes, and goes. It’s 4:50 PM now.

_16:49 Sanyo Shinkansen to Tokyo - At Platform_

Makoto’s afraid to look up at the real-time information board above their heads.  _Come on,_  he thinks, crossing his fingers, biting down on his lip.  _Let these delays work for me for once. Come on._

As if on cue, the sign flips.

_16:49 Sanyo Shinkansen to Tokyo - Delayed_

A buoyant hope soars in Makoto’s heart. He feels like it is singing inside his chest.

_“Ladies and gentlemen, due to bad weather, the 16:49 Sanyo Shinkansen service bound for Tokyo has been delayed for two minutes… we apologise for the inconvenience caused…”_

Makoto taps his foot impatiently on the tiled floor beneath his feet, willing the line to move faster, willing Lady Luck to stay with him just for now. Just for two minutes. Two minutes isn’t too much to ask.

But in the stifling heat of the walled-in ticket office, the clock ticks over from 4:51:00 into 4:51:01 as he stands in the queue behind a suited gentleman who can’t make up his mind if he wants the  _Hikari_  or  _Nozomi_  service.

Makoto looks up again -

_16:49 Sanyo Shinkansen to Tokyo - Delayed to 16:51_

and he sees the status of the train change in real time on the board above their heads.

_16:49 Sanyo Shinkansen to Tokyo - Departed 16:51_

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, in the middle of class, Makoto thinks about Haru in Tokyo.

Haru on the train, reading a book, or staring off into space. Haru gazing out of the window in his classroom like he always does. Haru walking home by the banks of the Meguro River, biting down into a soft warm mouthful of red bean pancake from the taiyaki stall, watching the sakura petals drift downstream.

Haru in his room, which (of course) looks exactly the same as his room in Iwatobi, only a little bit smaller. He knows this because Haru has told him about the size of their apartment in Tokyo. In Makoto’s imagination, Haru is busy with homework at his desk, or perhaps he’s in the kitchen, to help his mother prepare dinner. Haru has deft fingers. He chops the vegetables very finely.

Makoto thinks about Haru in his bathtub, head submerged underwater. Little bubbles come up to the surface and make popping noises that sound like little tinkly raindrops. Haru surfacing and looking up, to where no one will be waiting to pull him out.

Haru by the sea, gazing out at the waves.

And the green-eyed boy realises -

When he pictures his black-haired boy far away, he’s always alone. Even on the crowded train, with the sweaty messes of Tokyo pressed in all around him, he is alone, alone.

 

* * *

 

There is nothing for it but to buy a ticket for the next available train, due in to Shin-Yokohama at 8:22 PM. A full hour later than their arranged meeting time.

Makoto drags himself to the correct platform in a daze. He goes to a vending machine to buy a hot yuzu drink. The sweet citrus goes down his throat like ambrosia as the wind howls in his ears, mixed with the tinny strains of loud Christmas music from the headphones of the man next to him, who’s looking down at his mobile phone and typing a message with a vexed expression on his face.

A dim light goes off in Makoto’s mind.  _Mobile phone._

_Mobile phone!_

He fingers the other pocket in his jacket, the one on his left. There’s a slip of paper inside that he’d forgotten all about.

“Hi,” he says hesitantly, approaching the man with the music. “I’m sorry to trouble you… do you think I could borrow your phone? I’m really late, and I need to call my friend…”

The man’s furrowed eyebrows instantly dissolve themselves into an understanding smile. “Hell of a snowstorm, huh? Go ahead,” he says, handing Makoto his phone. “I’m two hours late myself.”

Makoto takes the phone gratefully, and fishes the slip of paper out of his pocket. It’s Haru’s last letter to him, written on the same type of lined notebook paper as always. His eyes flick to the bottom, looking for the number written there. He starts to punch it in. 090-353

The gale blows past them and tickles his nose, and Makoto sneezes -

His fingers slip -

_slip_

_slide_

and in one bone-chilling, graceful motion, the letter in his hand is swept up by the oncoming storm, whipping away on the wind in the blink of an eye, carrying with it Haru’s words and the rest of the number and Makoto’s cold, trembling fingerprints -

and in that instant, Makoto thinks he might do something he has not done in years.

He might cry.

Even on that night, that night when Haru had called him from the phone booth and told him he was going away, Makoto hadn’t cried.

Makoto hadn’t cried when he stood at the main road, waving goodbye to the Nanases, as the taxi that took them to the airport grew smaller and smaller, till it was out of sight.

Makoto hadn’t cried when he went to his first day of school without Haru.

But now, right hand gripping the phone so tight he’s scared the hinge might break, the pit of his stomach falling, falling endlessly, Makoto feels the tears start to prick his eyes, and a drop falls on his cheek.

 

* * *

 

_Makoto,_

_It’s the summer solstice._

_Do you remember, last year? We said we’d go to the beach together again and watch the sunset._

_I’m at the beach now, writing this letter. I’m looking out at the waters of Tokyo Bay. Eventually, they flow east, into the Pacific Ocean. That’s the largest ocean in the world._

_It’s slower out there in the open, where there’s nothing else for miles. The North Pacific Current only travels at 6cm per second._

_The sun is setting. You are somewhere in Kyushu with your family, on the other side of Japan._

_I hope you are seeing a breathtaking sunset there as well._

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

Makoto takes out the last of his three onigiri as the train inches forward, painfully slowly, exhaling its way out of Himeji Station.

_“Dear passengers, welcome onboard. This is the Sanyo Shinkansen, bound for Tokyo, stopping at Shin-Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Shin-Yokohama and Tokyo Station. The next stop is Nishi-Akashi. Nishi-Akashi, the next stop.”_

He opens his mouth to take a bite. But then he notices a little girl with green-ribboned ponytails in the aisle seat across from him, staring with wide eyes at the food in his hand.

Makoto holds out the onigiri to her. “Would you like to have it?” he asks.

She nods wordlessly, and reaches out.

_That outstretched hand -_

Makoto stares, and feels his senses reeling.

“Ah, Yuki-chan! You shouldn’t be pestering strangers like that! I’m so sorry!”

He blinks.

An older woman is leaning across from the window seat, gently lowering her daughter’s arm and smiling apologetically at Makoto.

“It’s okay,” says Makoto. “I’ve had two already on this train journey. Here, Yuki-chan, why don’t we share it?”

He carefully breaks the onigiri into two, and gives one half to the girl with the ponytails.

“You’re too kind,” says her mother. “What do we say, Yuki-chan?”

“Thank you,” she pipes up in a high, musical voice, nibbling round the edges of the seaweed. Her eyes light up, and she gives Makoto a radiant grin with grains of rice on her lips.

Makoto feels something inside him softening, melting.

The girl’s mother looks up at Makoto with a gentle smile. “We’re going home to Tokyo for Christmas. Are you, too?”

_Home?_

Makoto hesitates, for the smallest of split seconds, wondering what the word means. Tokyo isn’t home. He has never been to Tokyo in his life. He has no idea what to expect when he gets there. Haru hasn’t even sent him any photographs, though he has all his vivid visions, from the descriptions on the pages and pages of letters that sit in a shoebox in his second desk drawer.

_Going home for Christmas…_

_Home._

“Mmm,” says Makoto, with a nod, smiling back. “I am.”

He looks at his watch. It’s 5:10 PM. They should be at Nishi-Akashi in six minutes’ time.

 _Please,_  thinks Makoto, sending his desperate, indeterminate thought out into the snow-filled heavens, for what feels like the hundredth time today.

 

* * *

 

With a shudder, the train grinds to a halt again.

Makoto has been staring down at his feet, hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, where the train timetable and his carefully planned route now sit in worn, neglected folds. He ventures to peek outside.

It is a stunning sight. Makoto feels himself getting lightheaded, and he has to remember to breathe. Snow is falling, falling, swirling and spinning in the air, tiny flakes of pure white illuminated by the faint moonlight, and most of all…

There, stretching out right before his eyes, is the sea.

They have just passed Shin-Kobe, which means that Makoto is looking at the waters of the Kansai region, Osaka Bay; but here in the dark of a winter’s night, in the middle of a snowstorm, there is nothing to distinguish this sea from the Sea of Japan, or Tokyo Bay, or the Pacific Ocean.

He is looking at the water, and he knows that somewhere out there, on a balmy summer’s evening, around this time of day perhaps, Haru once stood (alone, always alone), looking at the water in Tokyo too.

The snow is piling up outside on the ground, calf deep, but out there in the water, it falls and dissipates like a quiet sigh.

He looks at his watch. It’s six o’clock exactly, and they are now thirty minutes behind schedule with hours to go before Shin-Yokohama.

_“Dear passengers, due to bad weather, this train will be held here for a while…”_

 

* * *

 

As the seconds tick into minutes, and the minutes into a quarter of an hour, then half, then one -

Makoto continues to gaze out the window at the sea.

The wind is stirring up the tides, and he can see the waves growing stronger, higher, crashing down into the dark, dark midnight blue with the white foam spraying. The snow continues to fall, hard and relentless.

He hugs himself tight, instinctively, missing the presence of someone constant by his side, a sharp pang throbbing into a dull, steady ache.

_“…we apologise for the delay in your journey this evening.”_

 

* * *

 

There is nothing I can do, thinks the boy with the olive green coat that matches his hair, as he looks into the startling blue eyes of his best friend, under the ghostly halogen light of a phone booth.

I want to protect you. You’re hurting, I know, you must be hurting so much more than me, but I am so powerless - so powerless to comfort you, to protect you, Haru -

His heart feels like a dandelion, rooted to the ground as its soft seeds blow away on the wind.

They do not speak a word. They stand, staring at each other like they will never see this sight again.

You’re going away, and there is

 

* * *

 

Nothing I can do. Nothing I can do, now that I’ve come this far.

I can only move on.

I can only move on, step by painful step, centimetre by centimetre, whether it’s 6 cm per second like the Pacific Ocean, or 25 cm per second like the Sea of Japan. I am the train on its tracks, stuck on my path.

I can’t turn back now, thinks Makoto, watching the sea swell mightily in the distance.

I can’t turn back.

I can only

 

* * *

 

“Move,” orders Haru, as Makoto sits on the roof with his bento, lid half open.

Obediently, he shifts to the side slightly, making room for Haru to sit next to him.

“What were you spacing out for?” asks Haru, opening his own bento box. The familiar smell of teriyaki saba floats out from it.

“I was just thinking, Haru… do you remember the day we met?”

Haru doesn’t say anything. He looks quizzically at Makoto, lips parting slightly for his chopsticks.

“I don’t, you know,” says Makoto, with a wistful smile. “It makes me a little bit sad.”

“Why?”

“Because I can remember the day we met our other friends. I can remember the day I met Rin, and the day I met Nagisa. But I can’t remember the day I met my best friend. Isn’t that sad?”

Haru chews his fish slowly. He leans back against the wall, pulling his legs up so his bento box rests on his knees.

“I don’t think it’s sad,” he says. “It means you can’t remember a day without me. That’s not sad.”

Makoto smiles. “Well, when you put it like that… yeah, I can’t.”

They eat their lunch in silence, side by side, the sound of birds chirping in the background on this spring day in May.

“You tucked my hair behind my ear for me,” says Haru softly, suddenly.

Makoto laughs, a little sheepish. “I did something like that?”

“Mmmm. Your hands were rough. It tickled.”

Makoto looks at the pale pink curve of the ear beside him, and wishes he, too, could remember how it felt beneath his fingertips.

 

* * *

 

As the train continues its slow, slow trek across the Kansai region, as it stops in the middle of wilderness, Makoto loses sight of the sea, and once more the landscape fades into a still, silent monochrome, snow drifting down soundlessly as far as the eye can see.

Makoto has the strangest sensation of being suspended in time, of standing apart from the world, here in this train carriage somewhere between Osaka and Kyoto. He is so far from home. He is so far from where he needs to go. He is so far from anywhere at all right now.

So when he looks down at his watch and he sees that, somewhere along the way, it’s turned to 8:02 PM and they are over two hours delayed, and their meeting time has passed, and the intercom crackles to life with another deep apology for the weather conditions, he can only draw his knees close to his chest in his seat, and continue staring out the window at the acres and acres of white, his mind going blank.

Despite the two and a half onigiri he’d eaten earlier, his stomach gives a low rumble.

 

* * *

 

At 8:15 PM, with the train nosing forward at an excruciating pace, so glacially slow that Makoto thinks it would be faster if he just got out and ran, ran, ran for his life towards Tokyo -

At 8:15 PM, he opens his duffel bag and takes out the brown paper bag of fish crackers his mom made for Haru.

The smell reminds him of lunches on rooftops, of Haru’s kitchen and the snacks they used to share while watching movies in his living room.

Makoto eats one cracker to stave off his growing peckishness, then another.

 

* * *

 

_“This is Nagoya, Nagoya…”_

Makoto stirs into wakefulness.

_Ah, I drifted off again… where are we…_

He looks at the train route scrolling across the screen at the front of the train. Nagoya, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Mishima, Shin-Yokohama.

Three more stops. Just three more.

But between each stop

an eternity.

He glances over at the seats across the aisle. The girl and her mother have gotten off somewhere along the way. He’s alone, now.

_Haru… are you alone too, at the station?_

At the thought, Makoto feels a lump well up in the back of his throat.

 

* * *

 

As the clock ticks on, as Makoto looks down at his watch by the blinding bright light of Shizuoka Station’s platforms, he can barely summon any more energy to feel anything at the sight of the  _9:45 PM_  that he sees gazing up starkly at him.

There is only one thought in his mind, a painful, yearning wish that overrides everything else right now.

_Haru, Haru -_

_Please don’t wait. Please tell me you’ve gone home._

_It’s late, and you must be cold, Haru -_

_please_

_don’t wait for me any more_

 

* * *

 

Two boys stand on the pavement’s edge, one with black hair and blue eyes, the other with olive brown hair and green eyes. In front of them is a dilapidated old building with peeling paint in a gaudy shade of turquoise.

“You know, Haru…” says the green-eyed boy. “I’m glad, after all. I’m glad that you wanted to come here one last time before you left.”

The black-haired boy looks at him. “Why?”

“Because.” The green-eyed boy smiles gently. He stares, a little pensive, at the fading sign above the door’s cracked awning, at the dust that cakes the doorknob. “Because when you stopped swimming, I thought this place didn’t mean anything to you anymore. But to me, it was a place with so many good memories. It was our place.”

The black-haired boy’s eyes widen as he stares.

How could I ever forget? he wonders, and then thinks, how could you ever think it didn’t mean anything to me anymore? It meant too much - too much, that’s why…

He opens his mouth then, and it nearly comes spilling out of him like a torrent, all the words that he’s kept dammed up over the years. The secrets he’s been keeping so intently. The truth about everything.

But his best friend lets out a small, fond laugh then, and steps away from the building. He turns to look at him, hope shimmering in his eyes beneath the lamplight.

“I’m happy, Haru.”

“Happy…?”

“Mmmm. I’m happy that you moved into the house upstairs. I’m happy that we met. That we got to swim together. I’m happy you were in my life, Haru.”

“Are,” says the black-haired boy, stubbornly.

He gazes straight into the vista of spring green in front of him, memorising the sight.

“Are. Not  _were_.”

“That’s right. We’ll go on being in each other’s lives, won’t we? Even after tomorrow…”

The boy with a heart of glass nods, feeling it go  _clink, clink_  inside him. He feels it might shatter, but for now, for now…

“Yeah,” he says. “We will.”

 

* * *

 

Shin-Yokohama Station is all metal and old cracked tile beneath Makoto’s worn shoes, but he doesn’t notice any of it. All he notices is that it is nearly eleven at night and he is so, so exhausted he cannot -

He cannot think, he cannot do anything but take one step after another, as he finally, finally gets off the Tokaido Shinkansen and sets foot on solid ground once again.

A dizziness overcomes him, and he cranes his neck painfully to look up for the signs directing him to the Yokohama Line towards Higashikanagawa.

One stop to Kikuna, just one stop; just two minutes on a normal day, but on this cold, cold night it takes him seven minutes to get there, and the Tokyu Toyoko line turns out to be overground as well, so the eight stops between Kikuna to Nakameguro stretch out interminably over the snow-covered tracks.

Makoto has all eternity to stare, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at everything new around him. There are buildings of concrete and glass taller than he’s ever seen in his life. There are so many people lining the pavements below him, even at this late hour in the wintry chill. There are lights to chase away the darkness, street lights, neon lights, Christmas lights of gold and green and red, shining merrily all around them.

And everywhere, across the city, snow falling quietly.

Makoto looks down at his watch. The second hand ticks ever closer to midnight.

 

* * *

 

_“Nakameguro Station, this is Nakameguro, change here for the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line. We apologise deeply for the delay to your train journey tonight due to the bad weather…”_

 

* * *

 

He is here.

It is 12:05 AM, his legs feel like jelly, there is a growing ache in his stomach, and butterflies in his throat.

He gets off the train for the final, final time today, looks down the elevated platform at the snow-covered sidewalk and the drifting eddies of white, and breathes in the air of Tokyo’s winter.

He is here.

And he can hardly believe the sight on the other side of the ticket barrier.

 

* * *

 

_“Haru.”_

 

* * *

 

Makoto puts his ticket through the gate. He hitches his bag up on his shoulder. He steps across the threshold, trembling slightly.

“Haru,” he says, voice soft and reverent, like a prayer.

The black-haired boy is sitting on a bench, head bowed forward across his bag, hands in his pockets and navy blue coat buttoned up to his collarbones. He’s wearing a white muffler that’s gone cream-coloured over the years. Makoto remembers it from junior high school.

Haru’s fallen asleep waiting, and he doesn’t hear Makoto walking up to him. His eyes are closed, his breathing even, punctuated by the slow rise and fall of his shoulders.

Makoto puts out a hand. He’s aiming for Haru’s shoulder, at first, but at the very last moment -

He reaches for the strands of hair falling over Haru’s forehead instead, and tucks it back behind his ear. It’s smooth and pale, earlobe warm beneath his fingertips.

Haru stirs.

He looks up. His eyes blink slowly, uncertainly.

Then they widen as he sits upright, and Makoto hears the sharp intake of breath, feels the tremor run through Haru’s smaller body as he lets his hand slide down his cheek and drop back down to his side.

“…Makoto.”

His name comes out like a whisper as Haru stares up at him, like he doesn’t dare to blink, like Makoto might disappear if he closes his eyes for just one instant.

Makoto smiles.

“ _Tadaima_ ,” he says.

“ _Okaeri_ ,” Haru whispers back, without missing a beat.

 

* * *

 

They walk back to Haru’s house the long way, along the Meguro River. Haru points out the spot where the taiyaki stall stands, and the stall that sells dried fruits on Tuesdays, and he shows Makoto the bench where he sat down once to eat his shaved ice and write him a letter in summer.

Fairy lights sparkle in silver and blue around the bare branches of the trees. This is their illumination for Christmas, Haru tells him.

“There are so many trees,” Makoto remarks.

Haru nods. “In spring, all of them bloom, and then you see the petals falling into the water.”

They cross a bridge, and Makoto’s footsteps come to a slow halt as he stares down below him.

“Look, Haru,” he says. “The river… it’s flowing.”

“Yeah,” says Haru, stepping up next to him and leaning over the railing. He shoots Makoto a questioning look with slightly raised eyebrows. “It does that.”

Makoto laughs. “Remember our promise? Well - it’s all wrong, I guess, the season is totally opposite, and we’re hours and hours past sunset, and this isn’t the Sea of Japan, but…”

Haru gazes out at the sight before them. Makoto can see his breath, little white wisps drifting away on the air.

“Don’t say that. It’s not  _all wrong_.” says Haru, quietly.

Makoto feels the soft woollen knit of Haru’s glove, then, pressing into his hand, as Haru reaches out without looking and takes it in his.

“As long as we can watch the waters together somehow… it’s good enough, isn’t it?” says Haru.

He turns to look at Makoto, his face lit up by the silver of the lights behind him, his eyes bluer than the sea.

Makoto takes a step closer, and raises his free hand, letting it come to rest on Haru’s cheek. It’s warm in spite of the cold, slightly pink and flushed.

Haru breathes in, exhales with a soft sigh, as he gazes up at Makoto in silence.

Gently, Makoto leans down and kisses him.

 

* * *

 

They take their time walking home, even though they know that at the end of the walk there’s a hot bath and a warm bed waiting for them.

They don’t have all the time in the world. They only have a few days. But here, making little crunching footprints in the snow with the sound of the river ever-flowing behind them, they can steal precious minutes, they can make this endless night last just one second longer, together.

 

* * *

 

“Oh! I almost forgot. My mom made these for you. But I, uh, ate half of them on the way here, I’m so sorry…”

“…I love these crackers. I can’t believe she remembered.”

“She remembers everything about you, Haru. She sends our love to you and your parents. And she says to tell you we miss you.”

“So how did you end up eating half of them?”

“I got hungry. Even though I had some onigiri. I guess it was a really long journey.”

“It was… that reminds me. I forgot about this too. Here.”

“A  _bento_?”

“I made it. I thought you would be starving when your train got in at 7.20 PM.”

“Haru… you made it for me?”

“Mmm. Don’t look so surprised. You know I can cook - hey, don’t eat it  _now_ , it’s cold, we can heat it up when we get home - ”

“It’s delicious, Haru. It’s the best bento I’ve ever had.”

“…don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying. Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

_Makoto,_

_I’m sitting at the train platform writing this. I brought this paper and pen with me so that I could write this letter straight away. I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it into words, not in front of you, when you are standing there with your warmth so close. I never know what to say around you, Makoto._

_I’m not much better on paper, but at least I have more time to think about it._

_You just left. I just waved you off, and watched your train pull out of the station. Secretly, a part of me hoped the snowstorm would come back so that you would be stuck here, but that’s not the way forward, is it? Getting stuck in one place… that’s not how it should be._

_You have your path to walk in Iwatobi, and I have mine in Tokyo. We have three years of high school to go yet. And then who knows where university will take us? And after that?_

_Forever is a long time. I don’t like to think about it. Let’s just think about tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and all the days when we will wake up in the morning with each other on our minds._

_I’m happy._

_Haru_

 

* * *

 

 _Haru,_  thinks Makoto, pressing his face to the train window as he leaves Nakameguro and the black-haired boy behind.

The station grows smaller and smaller, until Makoto cannot see it any more, and he sinks back down into his seat.

Something rustles in his jacket’s inner pocket.

_What…_

He reaches his hand inside, and pulls out -

A small paper crane, folded out of a faded blue post-it, covered in messy etchings that count out one hundred and sixteen days.

He was going to give it to Haru. But by the end of that journey, and everything else that happened that night, he’d completely forgotten about it.

Makoto presses it to his lips softly. He looks down at the little bird, sitting on his fingers, with its crooked wing and smushed beak. Carefully, he straightens out the folds.

He expects to feel sad. He is surprised when he doesn’t.

Perhaps, he thinks, it doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t need to count the days apart from Haru any more, or to give him tokens like this one. There may be many more days, months, years even, and he doesn’t know if they’ll always be together, because no one can say something like that for sure, no one can tell the future…

But Makoto knows that with that kiss on the bridge, everything has changed.

_Haru, wait for me._

_I’ll come home again to you, one day, one day._

 

ー終わりー

 

**Author's Note:**

> I had such a wonderful time writing this fic. It's pretty special to me. I love _Byousoku 5 CM_ and the minute I saw the prompt "Delayed Train"... it was meant to be. I hope I did it justice. (I also enjoyed the fact that it's directed by someone named Makoto; how more appropriate can you get?)
> 
> It's actually pretty tough to form a written narrative out of a film where almost nothing happens at all. Thanks to all my Twitter people for putting up with my live word count updates while I was writing this! Special shoutout to @fujoshi_bait for helping me read the shinkansen timetable (seriously, that thing is like an arcane text).
> 
> Thank you for so much for reading ♥ If you enjoyed it, a like or reblog on the [Official MakoHaru Festival 2015](http://theofficialmakoharufestival.tumblr.com/post/111601353846/username-themorninglark-beta-n-round-number-2) page counts as a vote for the festival :)
> 
> find me on [tumblr](http://themorninglark.tumblr.com/) | [@kenmakotos on twitter](https://twitter.com/kenmakotos)


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